A List of New Acquisitions for April - Bernard Quaritch Ltd

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BERNARD QUARITCH LTD

A List of New Acquisitions for April

Among our new acquisitions this April are aare a rare (and gory) novel with a feminist bent from the seventeenth century (number 5), an intriguing collection of poems and fables by a photographer-cum-spiritualist (number 12), and an unrecorded pamphlet of engraved vignettes celebrating the twentieth anniversary of the reign of Empress Maria Theresa (number 16). Also offered are Rafaelle Franchi’s extremely rare treatise on the laws of motion (number 10), a pamphlet in Romansh (number 24), and two books illustrated by Eric Gill (numbers 13 and 14). Lord Quinton’s collection of Roxburghe Club publications is featured as an addendum to this list.

2016

MONEY’S VALUE IN ITS PURCHASING POWER 1. AZPILCUETA NAVARRO, Martín de. confessariorum et poenitentium. Lyons, Rouillé, 1575.

Enchiridion

sive

Manuale

8vo, ff. [8], 510, [38]; woodcut printer’s device on title, head-pieces and initials throughout; some dusting and staining to the title, occasional marks internally, but a very good copy in contemporary limp vellum, faded ink titling to spine; illegible early ownership inscription, a few scattered marginalia. £500 Rare early edition of Azpilcueta’s Manual de confessores y penitentes, containing the author’s famous stance on usury, exchange and the value of money embedded within chapter XVII. It was first published in Spanish in 1566, and soon translated into several languages. Martin de Azpilcueta Navarro (1493-1586) was a founder-member of the School of Salamanca, where he introduced a new method of teaching civil law, combining its exposition with that of canon law, and eventually an eminent member of the University of Coimbra. He spent his last years in Rome as the trusted counsellor of Pius V, Gregory XIII and Sixtus V. Admired and consulted even in extreme old age, he was generally regarded as the most eminent canon-lawyer of his day. Writing on the tract on usury, Marjorie Grice-Hutchinson notes the following: ‘For economists Azpilcueta must ever be notable as having made the first clear and definite statement of the quantity theory of money... Discussing the “exchanges” he improves on Cajetan and Soto by basing the value of money not merely on its abundance and scarcity but, more specifically, on its purchasing power. … Azpilcueta was one of several important Spanish scholars who form an important link in the long chain of economists who have handed down Aristotle’s doctrine of the origin and function of money’ (Early Economic thought in Spain, pp. 95, 102-104). ICCU 18156.

2. BARBIERI, Lodovico. Trattato di psicologia nel quale si ragiona della natura dell’anime umane, e degli altri spiriti, della loro excellenza sopra i corpi, della intelligenza, della volunta, della immortalita ... Venice, Pietro Valvasense, 1756. 8vo, xxxi, [1], 340 (the last page with list of books printed by Valvasense); woodcut title-page vignette, initials, head- and tailpieces; a little light foxing, some very faint damp staining towards the end; a very good copy in contemporary stiff vellum, gilt lettering and inked roman numerals to spine, red edges; a few marks; circular blue ink stamp to title-page, ownership inscription of F. Philippus a Podiomirteto to foot of title-page and his book label to facing flyleaf. £500 First edition of the polymath Barbieri’s treatise on the soul, in which he argues that the soul is an ‘active power’ and that nothing can be known without ‘divine intervention’. Barbieri’s text tackles the interrelation of the body and soul, the nature of space, will and freedom, argues for the superiority of the spiritual over the corporeal and against the theory of innate ideas, and attempts to provide proof of the soul’s immortality. In the course of his arguments, Barbieri confronts Leibniz’s ‘monads’ and doctrine of preestablished harmony, and sets himself in opposition to Locke and, in particular, to Antonio Genovesi. Barbieri (1719-1791), a native of Vicenza, had a long-running interest in the soul. In addition to the Trattato, he published De coniunctione animae et corporis in 1742, attributing the union and separation of soul and body to divine will, and Nuovo sistema intorno l’anima delle bestie in 1750. But his publications covered an enormous range, including works on Virgil’s Aeneid, the nature of lightning, pleasure and pain, motion, rivers, the Immaculate Conception, Stoic philosophy, natural religion, and time in relation to man and God. His theories were consistent with the fundamental principles of the Catholic religion and opposed to rationalism, sensualism, and materialism.

FROM THE DESIGNER OF BIG BEN’S CLOCK 3. BECKETT, Edmund (formerly DENISON), first Baron Grimthorpe. Autograph letter signed (‘E.B. Denison’) to the Rev. John Barlow. [London?], 13 November 1856. 8vo bifolium, pp. 3 + 1 blank, arms of Royal Institution embossed at head of first page; light creases where once folded, very good. £175 + VAT in the EU A nice letter from the irascible designer of Big Ben’s clock to the secretary of the Royal Institution, the Rev. John Barlow (1798-1869), proposing a date for a talk: ‘I find from Mr Taylor that it is considered a duty I owe to society at large & the R.I. in particular to give the history of the proceedings which have ended today in the sounding of Big Ben ...’ Educated at Eton and Trinity College, Cambridge, Beckett (1816-1905) has been described as a ‘vigorous and acrimonious controversialist on ecclesiastical, architectural, scientific, and other topics’ (ODNB), but he made significant contributions in a number of fields, not least horology. His Rudimentary treatise on clock and watchmaking (1850) ran through eight editions, and he designed the clock for the Great Exhibition of 1851 which was later installed at King’s Cross railway station. Beckett was then commissioned by the astronomer royal George Biddell Airy to design the clock for the clock tower in Charles Barry’s new Houses of Parliament. While Beckett fell out with almost everyone involved, his invention of the revolutionary double three-legged gravity escapement (known as the Grimthorpe escapement) would ensure the clock’s famous accuracy after its completion in 1854. This letter from Beckett was written on a key date in Big Ben’s history: on 13 November 1856 a formal testing of the bell, hammer and clapper took place in Palace Yard with the bell ringing clear (to the relief of all present) at 11am.

A GUIDE TO READING: FROM A CONTEMPORARY GERMAN CIRCULATING LIBRARY 4. BERGK, Johann Adam. Die Kunst, Bücher zu lesen. Nebst Bemerkungen über Schriften und Schriftsteller. Jena, In der

Hempelschen Buchhandlung, 1799. 8vo, pp. XVI, 416; small stamp on title; in contemporary drab paper boards, paper label on spine; lightly stained, spine rubbed; from a German circulating library, with contemporary manuscript annotations on front cover. £400 First edition. Johann Adam Bergk's survey of the German cultural landscape at the end of the eighteenth century is also a compendium of literature and reading at the time - a particularly fertile time in the history of German literature with both Goethe and Schiller at the height of their powers. A facsimile edition was published in 1967. Our copy is from a German circulating library: the contemporary manuscript annotations on the front cover give details and dates of the book being lent to various subscribers over the year or so immediately following publication. Goedeke IV/2, 276, 35.

A VERY RARE NOVEL: 17TH-CENTURY NUNS TAKE UP THE VEIL OF ROMAN VESTAL VIRGINS 5.

BRUSONI, Girolamo. Degli amori tragici, istoria esemplare. Libri quattro. [Venice,

n.p., 1658]. 12mo, pp. [viii], 204, [2]; with woodcut head- and tail-pieces and initials; minute pinhole to the initial 3 leaves, a few unobtrusive little marks, but a very good copy, in contemporary vellum, sides filleted in gilt with gilt floral corner-pieces, flat spine lettered in gilt; gilding partially worn off. £1250 Very rare (1 copy in the US) first edition of a remarkable novel: a dramatic meditation on the predicaments of women, which uses the setting of a Roman temple of Vestal virgins as a (thin) veil to describe the plight of contemporary nuns, whilst escaping censorship. Almost daily episodes of violence, rape and blood – told in a lustily macabre style which nods to Seneca’s tragedies – but also wilful breaches of the purity required by their state mark the life of the Vestals in pagan Rome. Their unhappiness derives largely, Brusoni observes, from their lack of freedom in choosing their calling. Should women be allowed to opt for the temple/cloister of their own accord, sin and shameful lapses would be much rarer. A Vestal character poignantly voices the tragic predicament of many cloistered women throughout the centuries: ‘Are we not women, like any other woman? Do we not harbour the same feelings, the same passions? Do you think that when we get walled up here we turn into marble? […] In fact, Ennius, we can love better than others, and please our friends with the most subtle delectations’.

Brusoni was the acclaimed author of a number of other novels, of histories, poems and letters. This novel was reprinted in the seventeenth-century collected edition of his works and is mostly known from that source. The edition we offer is extremely rare, with no copy in the UK, 1 copy only recorded by OCLC outside Italy (Newberry), and 2 in Italy (Bologna and Rome).

INSTRUMENTAL IN THE CLASSICAL REVIVAL 6.

BUDÉ, Guillaume. Commentarii linguae Graecae ... [Paris], Josse Badius, September 1529.

Folio, pp. [lx], 967, [3], wanting final blank leaf; printed in Roman and Greek letter, title-page printed in red and black, Badius’s ‘Prelum Ascensianum’ printing-press device (Renouard no. 3) and architectural border (Renouard no. 2) on title-page, engraved initial to p. [1]; small worm track to blank tail margin of first quire (old repair to title verso) turning into pinhole thereafter, short tear to blank head margin of e1, small loss to blank fore-edge margin of K1, light ink stain to p. 17, some spotting to head of p. 515, a few other occasional light marks and stains, otherwise a very good, clean and crisp copy; modern full brown calf, blind-tooled frame and foliate and floral stamps to covers, spine in compartments with gilt lettering-piece; small early ownership inscriptions to title, a few marginal annotations and occasional underlining. £3250 A nice copy of the first edition of Budé’s seminal study of the Greek language, dedicated to Francis I, and superbly printed by Josse Badius. ‘Budé [1467-1540] was the most influential of the French humanistic scholars of the sixteenth century. He made his mark with a treatise on ancient coins and measures, which was a major authority for years to come, and he corresponded with most of the learned men of his time, amongst them Erasmus, who had the highest opinion of his talents, and Thomas More. He was held in the highest esteem by Francis I, who did so much to further the cause of humanism in France ... The ‘Commentaries on the Greek Language’ were a collection of lexigraphical, philological and historical notes, which formed the basis of the study of the Greek language in France. A monument of the new learning, it was several times reprinted, and gave Budé the reputation which is now commemorated in the modern series of parallel texts of Greek, Latin and Byzantine authors which bears his name’ (PMM). Budé was appointed royal librarian by Francis I, building a library which formed the nucleus of the Bibliothèque Nationale. He was also instrumental in the foundation of the Collège de France, which after 1530 became a centre for higher studies in France and reawakened interest in classical languages and literature. Adams B3093; BM STC French Books, p. 85; PMM 60; Renouard, Badius II, 239 (and see I, 45, 53 and 95). CC133

ALL TOO HUMAN ‘ENTHUSIASM’: PIONEERING PSYCHIATRY

7. CASAUBON, Meric. A treatise concerning enthusiasme, as it is an effect of nature but is mistaken by many for either divine inspiration, or diabolical possession. London, R.D. for Thomas Johnson, 1655 [i.e. 1654]. 8vo, [xxvi], 228; title-page vignette, engraved initials, head- and tailpieces; lightly toned, a few small marks, the occasional crease, but a very good copy, in contemporary sheep, sides filleted in blind, flat spine; upper joint cracked but holding firm, a little worn; small circular Selbourne Library stamp to verso of title leaf and to foot of p. 51, i.e. from the library of Hugh Selbourne MD. £2200 First edition of the first separate treatise on ‘enthusiasm’, a pioneering work of psychiatry avant la lettre and one of the most ground-breaking publications in a very public controversy. Of all Casaubon’s books, this has been shown as the most directly linked to the publication of John Dee’s manuscript Spiritual Diaries, in which enterprise Casaubon was instrumental. In the Treatise concerning enthusiasme for the first time Casaubon rejected any recourse to the supernatural in setting out a theory of mental states, showing ‘how various “Enthusiasmes” ... could arise from mental abnormalities without supernatural intervention or imposture’ (Hunter & McAlpine, Three Hundred Years of Psychiatry, pp. 143-7). Casaubon’s interest was directed to the most obviously dramatic forms of ‘enthusiasm’, but also and perhaps especially to the more understated forms of delusion. ‘This apparent paradox of “a sober kind of distraction” as Casaubon called it, has always been a major stumbling block in psychiatric systems and classifications. […] Casaubon realized that it touched on the fundamental question whether insanity “was an error of imagination only, and not of understanding”, and wondered whether by natural means one faculty could be “depraved” without the other. This dichotomy between an “intellective” or “ratiocinative” and an “imaginative” faculty is still implied in the current psychiatric distinction of mental illness into “thought disorder” or schizophrenia and “affective disorder” or manicdepressive psychosis, and of course forms the basic tenet of the McNaughton Rules (1843) by which “a defect of reason, from disease of the mind” is the ultimate medico-legal test for the presence or absence of absolving insanity’ (ibid.). It has been shown that Casaubon’s role in the publication of John Dee’s Spiritual diaries, which happened the year after the publication of this treatise, was strongly related to Casaubon’s own writings. The Dee diaries, intended to undermine the reputation both of Dee and of occultism in general, would in fact be functional in his project of attack on ‘enthusiastic’ and ‘inspired’ religion (Anabaptism), ‘which he saw as the product of misunderstanding concerning the natural causes of “private revelations” […] This attack has close parallels with some of his other controversial writings, and particularly his Treatise concerning Enthusiasme’ (Evans-Marr, Curiosity and Wonder from the Renaissance to the Enlightenment, 2006, p. 132).

Provenance: from the library of Dr Hugh Selbourne (1906-73), whose diaries as a doctor in the 1960s were published as A Doctor’s Life (1989, 2009) by his son David, the political philosopher and historian of ideas. ESTC R14401; Wing C812.

DANTE AS POLITICAL THINKER 8.

DANTE ALIGHIERI. Dantis Aligherii Florentini Monarchia. ‘Geneva, Henr. Albert Gosse’ [Venice, Giambatista Pasquali],

1740. 8vo, pp. iv, 95, [1]; woodcut vignette to title, initials and headpieces; lightly toned, small hole to title touching one letter; a very good copy in nineteenth-century calf, blind decorative border to covers, gilt and blind decoration to spine with gilt lettering; somewhat rubbed, wanting the rear free endpaper; bookplate of Samuel R. Block to front pastedown, some pencil notes to first few leaves. £1500 First separate edition of Dante’s Monarchia, a major work on political theory and a key to the understanding of the Divina Commedia. The book was first printed in Alciati’s De formula Romani imperii in 1559, and placed on the Index of forbidden books. It was reprinted by Simon Schardius in his collection De iurisdictione (1566 and 1609), but then lay fallow for over a hundred years. This is its third (and first separate) appearance. Giambatista Pasquali published Dante’s works in Venice in 173941 but felt it prudent to print the Monarchia separately, with a false imprint. ‘The two propositions expounded and proved true in the first and second book of the Monarchia, namely that an Emperor is necessary for the happiness of mankind, and that the imperial dignity belongs de iure to the Roman people, are the indispensable premisses to the third book, in which Dante tackles what seemed to him the central problem of his time and all times. Given (as he had proved) that a monarch is necessary for the welfare of men, and that this universal monarch is, according to God’s will, the Roman Emperor, how did it happen that for a long time the design of Providence had been thwarted? Two causes seem to have been uppermost in Dante’s mind as having been responsible for the decadence of the universal monarchy: the absence from Italy of the German Emperors (that is to say their neglect of their duties, for, instead of wisely and justly ruling the world from Rome, they had preferred to devote their attention to their German domains); and the confusion of the ecclesiastical power and the civil power’ (U. Limentani, ‘Dante’s Political Thought’, in The Mind of Dante, Cambridge 1965.) ‘It is mainly with this latter problem that the third book of the Monarchia is concerned. It seeks to establish the separation of the temporal power from the spiritual power, and to prove that the authority of the Roman monarch, who is by right the monarch of the world, derives immediately from God, and not from the Vicar of God (Mon. III, i, 5): a secular, or anti-hierocratical solution to the problem of the happiness of men on earth, and therefore a proposition which undermines the very basis of the claims to supremacy which had been repeatedly put forward by the popes, which Boniface VIII had forcefully asserted in the bull Unam Sanctam, and of which Clement V had often taken care to remind Henry VII’ (ibid). Mambelli 851.

CONTROVERSIAL CREMATION OF AN ENGLISH LADY

9. DILKE, Ashton Wentworth. Autograph letter signed (‘Ashton W. Dilke’) to Mrs Goodlake. [London] 76 Sloane Street, 20 October 1874. 115 x 90 mm, pp. 3 + 1 blank, the first page with black mourning border; horizontal crease where folded but very good; with three small newspaper clippings mounted on card. £100 + VAT in EU An interesting letter and accompanying newspaper clippings relating to the controversial but pioneering cremation in Dresden of Lady Katherine Dilke in October 1874. Lady Katherine was married to the writer and Liberal cabinet minister Sir Charles Wentworth Dilke (1843-1911) and died in childbirth on 20 September 1874. According to her wishes she was cremated in a furnace developed by the Siemens family at Dresden on 10 October. While her husband was too distressed to attend, her brother-in-law, the traveller and politician Ashton Wentworth Dilke (1850-1883), was present. The cremation prompted a hostile account in The Times, a clipping of which is included here: ‘the coffin was placed in the chamber of the furnace; six minutes later the coffin burst; five minutes more and the flesh began to melt away; ten minutes more and the skeleton was laid bare; another ten minutes and the bones began to crumble ...’ Ashton Dilke’s letter to his sister-in-law’s friend was written in reaction to this account: ‘As to the paragraph which appeared in the Times, the cremation took place in Dresden, by poor Katie’s earnest wish, she having a great horror and dread of burial, and we did our best to keep it private, but unfortunately the authorities insisted on being present ... I cannot think what caused the Times to insert so horrible and inaccurate a statement, making it seem as if, what was in reality a wish carried out by us regardless of trouble and of the sacrifice of our own feelings, ... [was] a coarse and unfeeling experiment.’ Also included here is a riposte to The Times article from The Morning Post, and an account of a second cremation in Dresden from the same newspaper. Dilke’s cremation occurred only a few months after the founding of the ‘Cremation Society of Great Britain’ by Sir Henry Thompson, physician to Queen Victoria, Anthony Trollope, John Everett Millais and others. Cremation remained illegal in Great Britain until 1885.

10. FRANCHI Raffaele. Solutio obiectorum contra suam positionem quae est velocitatem in motu attendi penes excessum proportionum moventium supra mobilia. [Florence, Zucchetta, 10

May 1516 (colophon)]. 4to, ff. [8]; with woodcut initials; a couple of inconsequential spots, but a fine copy, uncut, in modern wrappers. £3750 Extremely rare (1 copy located institutionally worldwide) first and only edition of this treatise on the laws of motion, by the Florentine Aristiotelian physicist and mathematician, Professor of logic at the University of Bologna. Extremely alert to the challenges and revolutionary theories which were overturning the traditional understanding of man’s position in the Universe and of the laws of nature, Franchi was also the author of a paraphrase of the newlydiscovered De rerum natura, by the Roman poet and philosopher Lucretius: a work which stirred men of letters and scientists in the Renaissance, and catalysed the debate on subjects of physics and philosophy. The only copy located by OCLC worldwide is at the Bibliotheque Mazarin in Paris. For the identification of Francus, see D.E. Rhodes, Raphael Franciscus equals Raphael Francus, florentinus, in: "Gutemberg Jahrbuch", n. 55, 1980, p. 79). Edit16 19799.

‘PUBLIC REVENUES LAB’ THE SIZE OF CALIFORNIA STATE USE OF UNIMPROVED LAND TO REPLACE ALL TAX ON BUSINESS GEORGE, Henry. [Drop-head title:] Our Land and land policy, national and state. San Francisco, White & Bauer and W. E. Loomis, 1871. 11.

8vo, pp. 48, with a folding map of California; a few small marks and stains, map reinforced; modern wrappers preserving (and closely matching) the original printed pale pink front wrapper (lightly soiled, edges frayed); preserved in a modern brown half morocco slipcase. £1200 First edition. In this rare pamphlet George outlines his plan for the State appropriation and use of ‘unimproved’ land as a means to generate revenues to replace all business taxes. Human labour can create wealth, he argued, only when it is applied to natural resources, which he termed “land”. Private ownership of land enables its possessors to charge rent from those who need access to land in order to produce income for themselves and society as a whole. That rent by rights belongs to the society whose labours generated it, and its collection by private individuals impoverishes those who produce it. Government should, therefore, commandeer the full value of unimproved land to meet community needs and abolish all other taxes, which injuriously burden both workers and investors of capital. During the next eight years George devoted himself to elaborating the economic principles implicit in these ideas’ (ANB). The work is divided into five chapters: ‘The lands of the United States’, ‘The lands of California’, ‘Land and labor’, ‘The tendency of our present land policy’ and ‘What our land policy should be’. ‘With tremendous power and farsightedness, he attacks the railroads and land grants, boldly giving names and specific cases of wrongdoing. The especially prepared map shows the immense extent of the 'Railroad Reservations' in California’ (Howell). Cowan & Cowan p. 233; Howes G105. Not in Einaudi. COPAC records two copies only (British Library and Bristol).

PHOTOGRAPHIC VERSE 12.

HARRISON, William. The lazy Lays, and Prose Imaginings … A. D. 1877 (Popular Chronology;) A. M. 5877

(Torquemada;) A. M. 50,800,077 (Huxley.) … London. 8vo, pp. 156; a fine copy in the publisher’s maroon cloth, upper board blocked in black and gilt with an elaborate design by Florence Claxton, lower board blocked in blind; corners slightly bumped; dedicatory inscription to title-page ‘To the authoress of “Serious Letters to Serious Friends”, with the sincere regards of Mr W. H. Harrison Oct. 5th 1877.’ £850 First edition, a presentation copy, of this eccentric collection of verse and prose by the spiritualist and journalist William Henry Harrison. Harrison was a keen photographer and a contributor to the British Journal of Photography. Several pieces here evidence that passion. ‘The Lay of the Photographer’ describes the preparation of photographic plates in heroic verse, with the important chemicals personified (the ‘elegant’ ‘Bromide’, the adventurous ‘young Pyroxyline’ etc.) Harrison claimed to have invented a bromide emulsion dry plate, and the poem touts the superiority of his process: if you mention the outmoded iodine method to a photographer, he is liable to ‘shriek and turn pallid with fear’. A second piece, ‘How Hadji Al Shacabac was Photographed’, describes a visit to a mysterious wizard skilled in the art of instantly producing pictures of people with the aid of a small ‘cannon’. The other pieces include verse in praise of a ‘Broad-Brimmed Hat’, as well as the imagined lamentations of a ‘Fat Man’ and a ‘Mother-in-Law’. The prose story ‘Our Raven’ describes the author’s trials as the hands (or claws) of a demonically possessed Raven with a passion for gardening. Other more serious essays include ‘How to double the Utility of the Printing Press’ and ‘Materialistic Religion’. Harrison whimsically dates his book using three separate chronologies, the ‘Popular’ one, Torquemada’s and Huxley’s. The elaborate cover depicts a griffin, accompanied by a rather disgruntled pelican-like bird holding a pen in its beak. A prefatory note explains that the choice of a griffin emblem for the front of the book is a reference to the monster that protected its treasure from ‘the one eyes Arimaspians’: this griffin, apparently, guards the book from opportunistic American publishers; the pelican, perhaps, represents the author. William Henry Harrison was notable for his close involvement in the nineteenth-century craze for spiritualism. He was the founder of the Spiritualist Newspaper, and later of the British National Association of Spiritualists. Marie Sinclair, the ‘authoress of “Serious Letters to serious Friends”, to whom this book is inscribed was vice-president of the Association. Her Letters on a serious Subject to serious Friends (1875) was an ambitious attempt to reconcile theosophy, spiritualism, and Catholicism.

13. [GILL, Eric]. CORNFORD, Frances. Autumn Midnight … London, The Poetry Bookshop … 1923. 8vo., pp. 23, [1], including a wood engraved frontispiece, initials, and end pieces by Eric Gill, printed on handmade paper; in the original printed green wrappers, scuffed at edges; bookplate of Margaret Lois Garrett. £175 First edition, with illustrations by Eric Gill, and printed at the St. Dominic’s Press. This is the issue with the correct spelling of ‘sixpence’ on the front cover. Frances Cornford published her first collection The Holtbury Idyll in 1908 with the encouragement of Rupert Brooke, and went on to write a further six books of poems. ‘Her short, often epigrammatic, poems are characterized by visual acuity and quiet humour’ (Oxford DNB). Margaret Lois Garrett (1887-1970) was a prominent campaigner for birth control.

Gill 273.

14.

[GILL, Eric]. KEATS, John. Lamia, Isabella, The Eve of Saint Agnes, and Other Poems.

Waltham, Saint Lawrence: The Golden Cockerel Press, 1928. Folio, pp. [4 (blank, imprint, title, section-title)], 101, [1 (blank)], [2 (colophon with wood-engraved press device, verso blank)]; title printed in red and black, and with wood-engraved border by and after Robert Gibbings, wood-engraved head- and tailpieces and decorated initials by and after Gibbings, wood-engraved initials by Eric Gill printed in red and blue; original sharkskin-backed black cloth by Sangorski & Sutcliffe, London, spine lettered in gilt, top edges gilt, others uncut; minimal light rubbing on corners, spine very slightly faded, otherwise a very good copy; provenance: [?]R.C.M. White, April 1929 (pencilled ownership inscription on front free endpaper). £700 Limited to 500 copies, this no. 419 of 485 copies on Batchelor hand-made paper. The text was based on the edition prepared for the Oxford University Press by H. Buxton Forman, and is set in Caslon Old Face, with initials by Eric Gill, including the initial letters ‘IT’, which had been cut for the Golden Cockerel Press’ edition of Troilus and Criseyde but were never used. Chanticleer comments that this was ‘[a]n almost perfectly-proportioned book, of which the Press is duly proud’.

Chanticleer 62; Gill Bibliography of Eric Gill 334.

PIONEER WORK ON LIBRARIES 15. LE GALLOIS, Pierre. Traitté des plus belles Bibliothèques de l’Europe. Des premiers Livres qui ont été faits. De l’Invention de l’Imprimerie. Des Imprimeurs. De plusieurs Livres qui ont été perdus & recouvrez par les soins des Sçavans. Avec une Methode pour dresser une Bibliothèque. Paris, Estienne Michallet, 1685. 12mo, pp. [xii], 240, with an additional engraved title-page; lightly toned, a few small marks; a good copy in contemporary calf, gilt decoration and giltlettered label to spine, edges sprinkled red; lacks free endpapers, somewhat worn and scraped. £350 Second edition of this celebrated pioneer work on libraries, first published in 1680. Le Gallois, a noted 17th-century French bibliographer, here discusses the invention of printing, incunabula, early printers, and public and private libraries across Europe, ending with advice on creating a library. The engraved title-page is new to this edition. BM STC French 1601-1700, p. 303.

AN UNRECORDED EULOGY AND TYPOGRAPHICAL EXTRAVAGANZA 16. [MARIA THERESA, Holy Roman Empress.] Fecit mihi magna qui potens est. Mariae Theresiae Imperatricis Reginae semper augustae spes decus praesidium Beata Virgo Dei genitrix. [Florence, Gaetano Albizzini, 1760?].

4to, ff. 4; unbound (but at some point bound in a sammelband); an excellent copy, uncut, printed on thick paper. £600 An unrecorded pamphlet celebrating the Empress Maria Theresa, Grand Duchess of Tuscany, possibly published on the occasion of the twentieth year of her reign.

The celebratory letterpress text, in Latin, is either accompanied by an engraved vignette (four) or enclosed in an elaborated engraved cartouche (six, of which two repeated). Three of the four vignettes, engraved by Franceschini after Rossi and Menabuoni, had previously appeared on the title pages of various Albizzini publications (Bibliothecae Mediceae Laurentianae et Palatinae codicum mms. orientalium catalogus, 1743; Vita di Michelagnolo Buonarroti, 1746; Componimenti poetici toscani del canonico Salvino Salvini, 1750); the fourth one (f. 1r), engraved by Zocchi after Faucci, appeared on the title page of Corsinus, Notae graecorum, sive vocum et numerorum compendia, 1749, printed by the Tipografia Imperiale (most likely also operated by Albizzini). The structure of the pamphlet and the use of several different decorative engraved elements seem to suggest that it may also have served as a typographical advertisement for Albizzini.

‘MY FATHER OSBORNE’ (SAMUEL PEPYS) 17.

OSBORNE, Francis. A sammelband of five works by Osborne. Oxford and

London, 1656-9. 12mo; occasional small marks, some marginal ink and pencil markings; very good copies in seventeenth-century calf; a little rubbed, head and tail bands broken, upper joint cracked at head, head of spine chipped, typed paper label to spine; initials I.L. in blind to upper cover, armorial bookplate of Hugh Cecil Earl of Lonsdale, small circular Selbourne Library ink stamp to verso of title and foot of p. 51 of first item. £950 An attractive sammelband containing the chief works of Francis Osborne (1593-1659), whom Pepys fondly called ‘my father Osborne’. After a career spent in various minor offices, Osborne’s final years in Oxford were extraordinarily productive. His output of historical, political, and moral works from this period, influenced by the thinking of his friend Thomas Hobbes, were widely read during the Restoration and first part of the eighteenth century, making their author something of a celebrity. Advice to a Son, here in the enlarged 1658 edition, was written for Osborne’s son John and first appeared anonymously in 1655. With sections on ‘studies’, ‘love and marriage’, ‘travell’, ‘government’, and ‘religion’, it was an immediate hit, being popular with a wide readership, including Oxford scholars. Calls to have it publicly burned for instilling atheism into young gentlemen only boosted sales. Osborne’s other chief work, Historical memoires on the reigns of Queen Elizabeth, and King James is also here, in the first edition of 1658, with the portraits of both monarchs found only in some copies. Here too is the first edition of Osborne’s Politicall reflections upon the government of the Turks, discussing, inter alia, Islam, Turkish politics and military matters, and with interesting asides on Machiavelli and Luther.

Provenance: bookplate of Hugh Cecil Lowther, fifth earl of Lonsdale (1857-1944), patron of boxing and horse racing and the first president of the Automobile Association; from the library of Dr Hugh Selbourne (1906-73).

Full list of contents available on request.

‘A PROFITABLE BOOKE’ FOR GENERATIONS OF LAW STUDENTS 18. PERKINS, John. A profitable booke of Master Iohn Perkins, Fellow of the Inner Temple. Treating of the lawes of England. London, Thomas Wight, 1601. 12mo, ff. [xiv], 168; vignette to title, engraved initials, in black letter and roman; a very few small marks, light damp staining to fore-edge margins at end, half of final blank flyleaf torn away, otherwise a very good, crisp and clean copy with wide margins; seventeenth-century limp vellum, title and date inked to spine in later hand; partly detached from text block, a little cockled and marked; ownership inscriptions of John Howland dated 1607 to final flyleaf, small circular Selbourne Library ink stamp to foot of title verso and f. 51r; a very attractive copy. £900 An attractive copy of the 1601 edition of Perkins’ Profitable book. Perkins, who died around 1545, had a troubled career – allegedly having his heels ‘turned upward’ in Westminster Hall for being a dishonest attorney and later being imprisoned and banished from Oxford for accusing two local abbots of treason and vice – but he became a ‘household name for generations of law students by reason of his little book on land law, called Perkins’ Profitable Book, which first appeared (in law French) in 1528 under the Latin title Perutilis tractatus magistri Johannis Parkins interioris Templi socii’ (ODNB). The first English translation appeared in 1555 and ran through seventeen editions and reprintings before 1660, with an edition appearing as late as 1827. ‘The English versions are divided into eleven chapters (dealing with grants, deeds, feoffments, exchanges, dower, curtesy, wills, devises, surrenders, reservations, and conditions) and 845 numbered sections. The Profitable Book was intended as a kind of supplement to Littleton’s Tenures ... [It] has a thoughtful jurisprudential preface, is clearly written, and was considered authoritative’ (ibid.).

Provenance: from the library of Dr Hugh Selbourne (1906-73), whose diaries as a doctor in the 1960s were published as A Doctor’s Life (1989, 2009) by his son David, the political philosopher and historian of ideas.

ESTC S114285; STC (2nd ed.) 19641.

A NEW DOCKYARD TO ENSURE BRITISH SUPREMACY AT SEA 19. [ROYAL NAVY]. ‘On a new dock yard at Northfleet and on machinery’. [c. 1807]. Manuscript on paper, folio, pp. 433, [5 blank]; in six parts, each tied up in top left corner with green silk ribbon, written in several neat secretarial hands in dark brown ink on one half of each page, watermarks dated 1805-7; a few small tears, some dust staining to edges, central vertical crease, but in a very good state of preservation; some ink and pencil corrections and annotations to ‘Part 1’.

[with:] [ROYAL NAVY]. ‘Dock yard at Northfleet’. [c. 1808]. Manuscript on paper, folio, pp. [94], [2 blank]; tied with pink ribbons, written in dark brown ink in two neat secretarial hands on one half of each page, watermarks dated 1807-8; a few marginal tears to first leaf, some dust staining to edges and final page, central vertical crease, but very good; several corrections and annotations in pencil and ink; ‘circa 1810 Lord Melville’ noted in pencil below title. £4500 Two fascinating and detailed manuscripts relating to the unrealised six million pound proposal to construct a new royal dockyard at Northfleet in Kent, equipped with the latest steam-powered and rail technologies, to meet Britain’s naval needs during the Napoleonic Wars and in future times of peace.

During the wars with France, the British Admiralty became increasingly worried about the ability of its four eastern dockyards in Kent (Chatham, Sheerness, Woolwich and Deptford) to maintain British maritime supremacy. Though of huge national importance, these yards had numerous disadvantages, resulting from the shallowing of the Thames and Medway and from their limited capacity for expansion in the face of growing demand for new ships and repair work. By 1805, the Admiralty was considering closing all four historic dockyards and constructing an entirely new one. The following year the Commission for Revising and Digesting the Civil Affairs of the Navy asked the engineer John Rennie (1761-1821) to report on the existing yards and the value of a new one at Northfleet. Rennie, aided by John Whidby and William Jessop, produced no fewer than 15 reports highlighting the benefits of Northfleet in being easy to approach, well protected, and deep enough to harbour a fleet of large warships, and proposing a design to maximise efficiency and the benefits of new steam and rail technology. Rennie’s scheme met with enthusiastic support within the government and navy and the necessary land was quickly purchased. But a succession of events meant that the Northfleet project was soon sunk without trace: growing awareness of the pitiful state of Sheerness prompted the Admiralty to save these facilities at all cost, while the emergence of steam dredging technology to clear the Medway mud shoals and the expansion of Chatham docks provided a less risky solution to the eastern dockyard crisis. Our first manuscript is a neat copy, with occasional corrections, of Rennie and his collaborators’ fifteenth report. It begins with a damning remark on the state of the existing royal dockyards compared to those in private hands: while the latter had ‘adopted great modern improvements in mechanics’, in the former ‘matters generally carried on as they had more than a century ago’. Having detailed the defects of the royal dockyards (their situation, poor

arrangement and want of space), the report turns to the best location and plan of construction for a new yard, the possibility of appropriating some of the existing yards and disposing of the rest, and the advantages of mechanical power over manual labour in manufacturing rope and canvas and in the operation of smithies. While admitting that the Northfleet project would not be cheap, the report concludes, ‘it will ... in our humble opinion be false economy to avoid, or even to postpone the expenditure’. Our second manuscript is a neat copy, with numerous corrections, of a summary report submitted ‘to your Lordships consideration’. It gives a brief history of the six royal dockyards and a precis of their defects (water too shallow, exposed to wind, too small to meet demand for ships resulting in substantial contracting out, inadequate safe accommodation for ships during peacetime etc.), advocates the introduction of new technology, and points to the economic advantages of the Northfleet scheme. The manuscript bears the pencil note ‘Lord Melville’ on the cover: Henry Dundas, first Viscount Melville, served as First Lord of the Admiralty and was, with his son Robert Dundas, a great supporter of the Northfleet plan. Cf British Library Add MS 27884 (‘Report on Northfleet new arsenal’, 1807). Rennie’s plans for the Northfleet dockyard are held at the National Maritime Museum. For more information see Philip MacDougall, ‘The abortive plan for Northfleet naval dockyard during the Napoleonic Wars’, Archaeologia Cantiana vol. 120 (2000), p. 149-168.

AMONG THE EARLIEST MONOGRAPHS ON MIGRAINES 20. SCHOBELT, Christopher Henrik. Afhandling om den halve Hovedpine. Copenhagen, Peder Horrebow, 1788. 8vo, pp. 64; some light foxing, but a good, wholly unsophisticated copy in the original drab boards, spine perished, upper board almost detached. £450 First edition in Danish and sole translation into a vernacular language of Schobelt’s Tractatio de hemicrania, which had appeared in 1776. In his monograph, one of the earliest, on migraines, Schobelt classified it as a special form of rheumatism, brought about by the ascent of humours. The Swiss physician Samuel A A D Tissot cited (and rebutted parts of) this treatise in his landmark Traité des nerfs et de leur maladies, published 8 years before the appearance of this Danish translation. Both the Latin original and this translation are very rare.

REGICIDE JUSTIFIED 21. SEXBY, Edward. Traicte politique compose par William Allen Anglois, et traduit nouvellement en Francois, ou il est prouve … que Tuer un Tyran titulo vel exercitio, n’est pas un meurtre. Lyon, [n.p.], 1658.

12mo, pp. [2], 94; initial leaves lightly foxed, else a very good copy; eighteenth century French emerald green morocco, gilt dentelles and edges, corners bumped and lightly chipped. £1000 First French edition of Sexby’s inflammatory Killing Noe Murder first published in Amsterdam in 1657. This French translation is perhaps the work of Jacques Carpentier de Marigny (See the Clark Library Catalogue vol. 13, p. 357). The work was first published ‘with the assistance of Silius Titus, under the name of Sexby’s former fellow agitator William Allen. Sexby argued that Cromwell was a tyrant on a par with Caligula and Nero. However stable, his reign was an abrogation of law which constituted the enslavement of the English people and threatened the outright corruption of English society. In such circumstances the private citizen was perfectly within his rights in seeking to exact punishment for which responsibility ought normally to rest with God and the magistrate. Tyranny being the suspension of the normal course of law, tyrannicide could not be regarded as an act of murder’ (ODNB). This French edition is important on account of Sexby’s role in disseminating the radical ideas of the Levellers in France. A few months after the loss of his parliamentary commission in 1652, ‘Sexby was chosen by the council of state as an unofficial envoy to the Frondeurs, with a view to fanning the flames of revolt in south-west France. Based at Bordeaux, his activities were regarded with grave suspicion by many among the supporters of the prince of Condé. However, Sexby was able to commend to the republican Ormée faction some of those radical ideas which he had effectively abandoned when he entered the service of the English Commonwealth … This enthused some of the French rebels sufficiently to send a deputation to Westminster on an ill-fated quest for formal English assistance in their struggle with Cardinal Mazarin’ (ibid). This translation is of enduring significance – it was reprinted in 1793, no doubt to justify the executions that occurred during and after the French Revolution. Brunet, vol. 1, col. 189-190; Clark Library Catalogue vol. 13, p. 357.

FREEDOM IN LOVE, POLITICS, AND LITERATURE 22. [STAËL-HOLSTEIN, Anne Louise Germaine, Baronne de.] Lettres sur les ouvrages et le caractere de J. J. Rousseau. [Paris or Geneva], 1788. 12mo, pp. [iv], 123, title-page lightly dust-soiled, a few spots and stains; in 19th century quarter calf, end-leaves renewed. £600 Scarce first edition of the first important work by Mme de Stäel, published when she was 22. ‘Between Rousseau and her mother she had received a singular education. It was Rousseau, however, whom Madame de Stäel singled out to acknowledge her intellectual debt’ (Herold, p. 190).

In Lettres sur les ouvrages..., Mme de Stäel advocated freedom in love, politics, and literature, a theory that she was to return to repeatedly throughout her literary career. The work is essentially a protest against the weary frivolity of eighteenth century society. It also was, no less significantly, the protests of a superior woman against a society which, though singularly indulgent to all other feminine weaknesses, reserved its punishment for the crime of superiority. ‘A less robust temperament might have drawn back in resignation, accepted the coarseness of men as irremediable, and suffered a life of submissive frigidity. But Germaine’s sensibility was not genteel but tempestuous; not ladylike but rugged. She was determined to know love, in the teeth of the cynicism and prudishness of society. Love was not immoral: society was’ (Herold, p. 67). Longchamp, L’Oeuvre imprimé de Madame de Staël, 3; Schazmann, Bibliographie des oeuvres de Mme de Staël, 4. See Herold, Mistress to an Age. A Life of Madame de Stäel.

FOUNDING A GENRE 23. THEOPHRASTUS. Characteres. Recensuit animadversionibus illustravit atque Indicem Verborum adiecit Joh. Frider. Fischerus accessit Commentarius Isaaci Casauboni. Coburg, J. C. Findeisius, 1763. 8vo, pp. [lvi], 166, [122 index]; 240, [10 index]; a clean, crisp copy in contemporary stiff vellum, all edges red. £350 First edition of a highly regarded publication: Fischer’s excellent edition of Theophrastus’s Characters with Casaubon’s commentaries. Theophrastus’ is the first recorded attempt at systematic character writing. The successor of Aristotle as leader of the Peripathetic School, Theophrastus is celebrated as the ‘father of botany’, but his endeavours extended to logic, ethics and metaphysics. ‘The Commentary of Casaubon, with the useful observations of Gale and Needham - a copious and accurate index - and an excellent review of MSS, and previous editions, displaying every where great critical acumen as well as just taste’ (Dibdin, p.502). The genre invented by Theophrastus found several emulators, most notably Joseph Hall (1608), Sir Thomas Overbury (1614–16), and Jean de La Bruyère (1688). George Eliot also took inspiration from Theophrastus’ Characters, memorably, in her last work, Impressions of Theophrastus Such.

ROMANSH EULOGY TO A YOUNG MAN 24. VITAL, Johannes Jacob. La cascada inopinata della gioventü sün l’occasiun funerala del nobil, cast, e virtuus juven junker Heinrich J. Bazell. [Scuol], Jacobo Not

Gadina, 1765. 8vo, pp. 52; title within an ornamental border; title soiled, some marginal waterstains, last four leaves with marginal wormtrack touching a few letters on final leaf, corners frayed; sewn in contemporary wrappers reusing two sixteenth-century German almanac leaves, painted black on the outer side; spine almost perished. £350 An extremely rare eulogy, written in Romansh, in praise of the young nobleman Heinrich Bazell, which becomes the occasion for a more general reflection on premature death. Romansh is a Romance language, descending from the spoken Latin (Vulgar Latin) of the Roman Empire, which is recognised as one of the official languages of Switzerland despite being currently used by just over 60,000 people, predominantly in the southeastern Swiss canton of Grisons. The book opens with the homily given by the Protestant priest Johannes Jacob Vital, pastor in Sent, during the funeral of young ‘Andri’ (‘Heinrich’ in Romansh), and it is followed by a few poetic compositions in Romansh (mainly), German and French by a few friends and relatives of the deceased (Heinrich Salomon, Petrus Dominicus Rosius, Jacob Rauchius, Caspar Hansius, his brother-in-law Casper Stupan, Jahn de Salutz).

OCLC records only 2 copies outside Switzerland, at Cornell and Berlin State Library. See: Pietro Bazell, La via verso la morte del giovane Andri, in Quaderni grigionitaliani, n.1, 2003, p.83.

ADDENDUM: ROXBURGHE CLUB PUBLICATIONS FROM THE LIBRARY OF LORD QUINTON Anthony Meredith Quinton, Lord Quinton (1925-2010), political philosopher and metaphysician, president of Trinity College, Oxford, advisor to Margaret Thatcher, chairman of the board of the British Library, and host of Radio 4’s Round Britain Quiz, became a member of the Roxburghe Club in 1990. The following copies of Roxburghe Club publications from Quinton’s library have his name highlighted in red in the list of members.

1. ALEXANDER, Jonathan J.G. The Towneley lectionary. Illuminated for Cardinal Alessandro Farnese by Giulio Clovio. The New York Public Library Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations Manuscript 91. Described by Jonathan J.G. Alexander. The Roxburghe Club, 1997. Large folio, pp. [x], 99, [1], including 13 full-page colour facsimile plates within the pagination; a fine copy in quarter maroon morocco over maroon cloth boards, title in gilt to spine, gilt arms to upper board, top edge gilt; a few light marks and scrapes. £400 2. CHALKHILL, John. The works of John Chalkhill edited with an introductory essay, commentary, and appendices by Charles Ryskamp & Scott D. Westrem. The Roxburghe Club, 1999. Folio, pp. [iv], [4], v-xiv, 220, with 20 illustrations; a fine copy in quarter red morocco over red cloth boards, title in gilt to spine; a little faint foxing to bottom edge of text block. £200 3. GRIFFITHS, Jeremy and A.S.G. EDWARDS, editors. The Tollemache Book of Secrets. A descriptive index and complete facsimile with an introduction and transcriptions together with Catherine Tollemache’s Receipts of Pastery, Confectionary &c. The Roxburghe Club, 2001. 4to, pp. xx, 301, including facsimiles of the Book of Secrets and of the Receipts; a fine copy in quarter orange morocco over blue cloth boards, giltlettered spine, gilt arms to upper cover, top edge gilt; top corners bumped. £300

4. LINSCHOTEN, Jan Huygen van. Jan Huygen van Linschoten and the moral map of Asia. The plates and text of the Itinerario and Icones, habitus gestusque Indorum ac Lusitanorum per Indiam viventium. With a study by Ernst van den Boogaart. London, The Roxburghe Club, 1999. Elephant folio, pp. xiii, [1], 282, with 42 colour facsimile plates included in the pagination, and with a separately bound facsimile reproduction of the Icones housed in a pocket inside the back board (ff. 31, one folding); a fine copy in quarter orange morocco over cloth boards, vellum corners, title in gilt to spine, gilt inlay to upper cover. £1500 5. PALMER, Samuel. Samuel Palmer. The sketchbook of 1824. Reproduced from pages now in the British Museum and the Victoria and Albert Museum. Edited with an introduction and commentary by Martin Butlin. The Roxburghe Club, 2006. Two vols, oblong 8vo, pp. 77, [1]; [164] comprising a facsimile; a fine copy, vol. I in quarter calf over marbled boards with gilt-lettered spine, vol. II in full calf with clasp; in cream cloth slipcase with gilt-lettered leather label. £200 6. ROBINSON, B.W., Eleanor SIMS, and Manijeh BAYANI. The Windsor Shahnama of 1648. London, Azimuth Editions for the Roxburghe Club, 2007. Folio, pp. [ii, list of Club members], 255, illustrated throughout with black and white and colour reproductions; a fine copy in half black leather over blue cloth boards, title in gilt to spine; lower corner of front board slightly bumped. £250 7. ROBINSON, John Martin. The regency country house. Architectural photographs from the archives of Country Life with an introduction by John Martin Robinson. London, Aurum Press for the Roxburghe Club, 2005. Folio, pp. [x], 192, illustrated with black and white and colour photographs throughout; a fine copy in half green morocco over marbled boards, title in gilt to spine, top edge gilt. £175 8. WAGNER, Anthony, Nicolas BARKER and Ann PAYNE. Medieval pageant. Writhe’s Garter Book. The Ceremony of the Bath and the Earldom of Salisbury Roll. London, The Roxburghe Club, 1993. Large folio, pp. xxi, [1], 100, [2], with 78 full-page colour facsimile plates; a fine copy in quarter tan morocco over blue cloth boards, vellum corners, title in gilt to spine, top edge gilt; lower corner of upper board very slightly bumped. £400 A full description of the books is available on request.

Recent Catalogues and Lists Recent Lists: 2016/7 New York Book Fair List 2016/6 From the Library of Lord Quinton 2016/5 The Armchair Traveller: Polar Exploration 2016/4 Edinburgh Book Fair List 2016/3 California Book Fair List

Recent Catalogues: 1433 English Books and Manuscripts 1432 Continental Books 1431 Travel & Exploration, Natural History

The illustration opposite and the illustration to the title-page are both taken from item 16.